Bruins 3, Oilers 0

Associated Press

BOSTON (AP) -Brandon Bochenski is making a good impression on his new teammates.

The forward scored for the fourth time in four games since he was traded to Boston, and Marco Sturm added another goal 62 seconds later in the first period on Tuesday night to lead the Bruins to a 3-0 victory over the Edmonton Oilers.

"We got on a two-man advantage, and then a 5-on-4, and that was enough to win the game," said Bochenski, who was acquired from Chicago in a swap of minor leaguers on Feb. 3. "We won the game in the first five minutes."

Tim Thomas stopped 32 shots for his second shutout of the season, and Patrice Bergeron assisted on the first two goals before leaving the game in the third period with an unspecified lower body injury. Bruins coach Dave Lewis said he will be evaluated on Wednesday before the team begins a 10-game, six-day road trip.

The Bruins have won four of five, but it was their first victory this month in regulation.

"The last couple of games, we've gotten some victories," Lewis said. "I'm a realist. I still think we have an interesting road ahead of us."

Sturm added an empty-netter with 2:12 left, with an assist from Bochenski, on a turnaround slap shot from center ice just seconds after Dwayne Roloson left for an extra skater.

Roloson stopped 20 shots for the Oilers.

"It feels good to win, especially when coming to a new team," Bochenski said.

The Bruins held a 5-on-3 advantage when Bochenski centered the puck to Zdeno Chara, who swatted at it but couldn't get his stick on it. While it bounced around, it went off defenseman Steve Staios' skate and into the net with 4:47 left in the first.

A minute later, Bergeron took a shot from close in and it bounced off Roloson's stick to Sturm, who whacked it in. It was Bergeron's 100th NHL assist.

"And that was the start we didn't want," said Oilers coach Craig MacTavish, who greeted the media with a big sigh, then rubbed his forehead in frustration. "Your margin of error is pretty fine defensively and from a discipline perspective when you don't score any goals."

The Oilers' power play had the NHL's No. 2 penalty-killing unit - the best in the league on the road, with only nine goals allowed in 134 short-handed situations.

"They really didn't have anything" on the first goal, forward Shawn Horcoff said. "Our penalty killing's not the problem. In a lot of cases, it's because we've been getting 7, 8, 9 penalties a game."

The Bruins wore No. 9 patches in honor of Hall of Famer John "Chief" Bucyk, who was honored before the game for 50 years with the team. He was the last Boston captain to skate with the Stanley Cup.

The quest for another is going slowly. The Bruins are stuck at the bottom of the Northeast Division and eight points behind the No. 8 team in the Eastern Conference.

To shake things up, they traded defenseman Brad Stuart and forward Wayne Primeau to the Calgary Flames on Saturday for defenseman Andrew Ference and forward Chuck Kobasew. Ference made his Bruins debut on Tuesday but Kobasew, who played on Boston College's 2001 NCAA championship team, has been sidelined with an elbow injury since late January.

Notes: The Oilers hadn't visited Boston since Nov. 11, 2003. The Bruins haven't lost to Edmonton at home since 1996. ... The Bruins are 3-0 against the Northwest Division. ... Oilers forward Fernando Pisani, who sustained a concussion on Sunday against Atlanta, didn't play. ... The Bruins called defenseman Mark Stuart up from Providence of the AHL after the game as a reinforcement for the upcoming six-game road trip.